In the Loop

Deborah Gonzalez, newly elected to represent Georgia House District 117, began 2018 with $11,466 in her campaign account; and Jonathan Wallace, newly elected to represent Georgia House District 119, began the year with $11,639 in unspent campaign funds.

Gonzalez and Wallace are Democrats. Both the 117th and 119th House Districts are split between Oconee and Clarke counties.

Republican Houston Gaines, who lost to Gonzalez in the special election in November of 2017, had $96,863 in unspent campaign funds at the end of 2017.

Win or lose, Athens-Clarke County police want you to know there will be no riots in the streets of Athens tonight after Georgia plays in the college football national championship game.

The department called a news conference earlier this afternoon to discuss plans for public safety downtown. The game is in Atlanta, but local police expect a crowd along the lines of a typical UGA home game—potentially tens of thousands of people, according to Sgt. Epifiano Rodriguez.

Lovers of funky tapestries and eclectic novelties will be saddened to hear Junkman’s Daughter’s Brother, located on West Broad Street, is officially closing as soon as the last of the merchandise sells.

However, it’s not a retirement or sudden urge to relocate that’s shutting down the shop—it’s that rent is going by 56 percent. Owner Mark Gavron said no one approached him with an opportunity to re-sign his lease. One day, he said, a man came in and casually asked if Gavron was moving locations, since he’d seen the building was available on Craigslist. Gavron said this was the first he had heard of the news.

“It’s OK, it just puts me a year ahead of my planned retirement,” he said.

Indivisible District 10 members gathered outside an Athens Verizon store Dec. 7 to protest the end of net neutrality.

Dozens of protesters braved wintry weather last week to demonstrate in front of a local Verizon store against the rollback of Obama-era net neutrality laws, joining thousands of others at more than 700 similar demonstrations across the country.

Today, a coalition of organizations, including Free Press, Center for Media Justice, Color of Change and other groups are demonstrating in front of Federal Communications Commission offices in Washington, DC immediately prior to a scheduled FCC vote to on ending net neutrality.

Toni Reed, a co-chair of the political group Indivisible Georgia District 10, said that the effort would make “access to the internet… based on what you can afford. Deregulation will only benefit the wealthy and large corporations.”

A University of Georgia bus driver was arrested last week after leaving his handgun in a residence hall restroom, according to UGA police.

Brett Michael Davis, 30, stopped at Brumby Hall to use the men's room on the morning of Dec. 6, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. He took his gun out of his holster and placed it on the railing of a handicapped stall, then left without the gun.

Fifteen minutes later, he returned for the loaded weapon, but an administrator at the dorm had already seen it and called police, who were on the scene when he returned.